Well friends, another hot August looms closer, and with the coming of this hot spot in Houston comes the joys of_GenCon! Yes, the penultimate gaming experience is just around the corner, and while this may seem to be a useless bit of trivia to you all, the important part of this is that companies will be releasing new products for all of the gaming fans across the nation. So, to commemorate this event, lets look at what's ahead in the game world.
TSR, and WoTC are making waves in the industry, with the recent acquisition of the Games Keeper in the west, they now have many different markets available to them. AD&D and Magic are still strong, and TSR will be announcing the 25th anniversary products at the con. Furthermore, we should see the release of the long-awaited Dragon CD-ROM. Yes, Dragon issues 1-250 in an easy to read format, just around the corner. And naturally, we at Games Nation will be carrying it.
A surprise release from Fantasy Flight Games, Diskwars was released early, and the game is a surprise hit! Although similar in appearance to pogs, it bears nothing of the resemblance to that inane "game." No, Diskwars is a good, solid game that happens to use different types of disks, representing armies and personalities, to bash your opponent into the dirt. Quite fun!
Games Workshop is up to their old tricks again, and have announced the plans for a GW store in Houston. Well, not really in Houston, but in Katy. OK, at the Katy Hills Mall. Now, not to dissuade or pick at the mall, but it really isn't anywhere near the central Houston that GW is telling its customers that it is. Shoot, here in Clear Lake, that's over an hour drive, even in good traffic and hitting all of the lights. So, it looks as if their scouts did a poor job of reporting the geography of Houston, but hey, we will have a GW store in the general vicinity of Houston. Good luck, they'll need it.
AEG has released their 7th Sea game, and the initial looks of it bode well. There are plans to release more supplements for it at the con, and its future seems bright, but not quite as bright as its sister product, the Legend of the 5 Rings RPG.
The really big news, though, is the re-release of Feng Shui, the Shadowfist RPG. For those of you unfamiliar with this product, and I assume that many of you are, Feng Shui is a RPG set in a Chinese Action-colonial-timehopping-sci-fi-supernatural-magic-political-Dirty Harry-esque game. Whew! Atlas Games will be releasing this new edition, and hopefully the card game will follow suit. For those of you rumor squirrels out there, scuttlebutt is that "Z-Man" games has the rights to the CCG. Funny thing, though, is that nobody seems to have heard of `em. We'll just have to wait and see.
Now, a word about cons. For many of you out there, this seems like a strange idea. A 2 or 3 day event where gamers gather to play games, have fun, and buy cool stuff at good prices. Now, here in the Clear Lake region, we just had a small con, SanCon 6, and we at Games Nation not only sent reps for the event, but also had dealer's tables, and sponsored prizes for some of the events. But it seems we were all but alone. Come on, people, gaming is an experience, not something to be taken note of when the fancy strikes us. We do this out of love for the hobby (or to prove a point) and a desire to watch our hobby grow and flourish. So if your local group is having a con, join in. Let the gamers know that you're there for them, and more importantly, that you are one of them.
Shade and Sweet Water
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